


Nightmare Landscapes

by TheseusInTheMaze



Category: jacksepticeye
Genre: Body Horror, Dreams and Nightmares, Eye Trauma, Gen, Gore, Teeth Falling Out, Terror, Tongue trauma, Transformation, self mutilation, throat slitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 00:43:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15618678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/pseuds/TheseusInTheMaze
Summary: Dreams are a strange place to visit, as Jack soon discovers. But someone is following him. If only he could figure out who it was....





	Nightmare Landscapes

**Author's Note:**

> This is _very_ gory - proceed with caution!

Sean McLoughlin slept wrapped in a duvet, drooling into his pillow, next to his girlfriend, who had kicked her side of the covers off, her fingers tangled in her pillowcase.

Sean McLoughlin slept the sleep of the blameless, and he dreamed.

And in his dreams, he was Jack. 

* * *

Jack walked.

Jack walked through a varied landscape - a confusing landscape, that changed with every step he took.

It was a bit like those old fairy tales, with the seven league boots, although he'd always wondered the logistics of that. 

In the dream, though, it made sense.

It all made sense.

He just walked, and as he walked, he got places.

What were these places?

Fucked if he knew.

But there was a forest full of eyes and grasping hands, and every time he looked into an eye, he saw another future, and another.

He was Jack here, not Sean - his hair was green, even though it hadn't been green for a long time.

Was Jack a different person?

Or just a different part of himself?

He wasn't sure, but in the dream, it made sense.

Dream logic was complicated, and he wasn't going to complain too hard about how strange it was, because... well, dream logic.

He didn't really know it was strange, except for some small part in the back of his head.

But he was walking in his seven league boots, through all the different landscapes of the dream world - was this going to be like in that comic he read when he was a teenager, Sandman?

Was he going to come across a guy with skin like bone, a craggy face, and a coat full of faces?

Would there be a unicorn, a wyvern, and a griffin?

... wow, even in his dreams he made reference jokes.

He stopped his walking, right in the middle of a great, steaming jungle, and he started to laugh, and as he laughed, pearls came out of his mouth.

It was like a different fairy tale, except it was... it was unpleasant. 

It was exceedingly unpleasant.

It was a bit like vomiting, which he hated, only more so, because the pearls were _hard_ \- he'd never actually eaten anything with that consistency.

He held the pearls in his hands, and he looked down into them - they were green, and some of them had what looked a bit like irises in them.

Were they pearls, or were they eyes?

When he dropped them in them mud, they split like grapes, which was... disgusting.

He gave a full body shiver, and he began to walk again, quickly, in an attempt to get as far away from it as he could. 

He... he didn't need that in his life.

He was beginning to gain a sense of dread.

A dread that was creeping up the back of his neck, and he was shaking, just a bit. 

Something was chasing him.

Something dangerous, something that could hurt him in ways that he didn't want to think about, because... because there are things you don't want to think about, not ever.

Huh.

He was aware that this was a dream, he was aware that this wasn't real, but at the same time, he was also living it.

He was living it, and his heart was beating very fast in his chest.

He began to run - he was _aware_ of how he was running, of the "thud" of his boots on the ground, aware of the landscape changing beside him like someone moving a slide projector too fast, and he was aware of his breath beginning to get tight in his chest, but no matter what he did, he wasn't able to outrun the thing.

It was keeping in step with him - not only was it keeping in step with him, it was matching his steps perfectly, so that he could only barely hear the echo of their steps against his own.

His breath was tight in his chest, and his head was already beginning to spin, as he kept running, running as hard and as fast as he could, and then he was... back where he started.

Well, not where he started exactly, because he didn't remember that, but this was the place with the eyeball pearls, that he had laughed out.

Had he run through the whole of the planet? All of the dreamscape?

The thing was still behind him.

Maybe it would stop being there if he didn't turn around?

If he just ignored it?

That was how he'd been informed to get bullies to leave him alone, and while it hadn't ever... well, worked, per se, it had to be something, right?

This was his mind - he knew it was his mind, his place, even if he was so terrified that he wanted to die, just a little bit.

He stared into the eyes of the pearl tree, and they stared at him, milky with cataracts. 

Pearls are not made to be eyes, and Jack could tell, and his heart was beating so fast that his heart was going to explode.

There was breath on the back of his neck, breath that was hot and steamy, to add to the other things in the jungle, and because it was a dream, he was sweating.

He was sweating, and the sweat was dripping down his back, pooling in the backs of his knees - he didn't sweat, except apparently he did, in this dream. 

He was shaking so hard that his teeth were chattering, even though he wasn't cold.

He was too hot, he wanted to be naked, he wanted to be elsewhere.

Wait.

This was a dream.

This was a dream, and he could wake up.

If he turned around, the thing behind him was going to eat him, but if it ate him, then he'd wake up, because this was a dream.

... he'd done this before.

This had happened before.

Jack knew it, the way he knew he had bones, and how was he going to fight this, what was he going to do?

He had to... he had to let himself be eaten.

He broke the gaze of the pearl-eyes, and he turned around, to look into the face of the thing that was going to eat him.

To see... his own face, staring back at him.

* * * 

Sean woke up with a jerk, lying in bed, shaking, trying to get the fog to leave his mind, clinging to his covers. 

Fuck. 

That... that was a bit of a doozy. 

He swung his feet down and off the bed, and he stood up, making his way to the bathroom.

He’d pee, and go back to sleep.

That would help things - he’d read somewhere that nightmares could be stymied that way. 

* * * 

Sean McLoughlin leaned back into his chair, and he let his eyes slide shut, exhaustion beating down on him like waves on the beach.

He'd just... rest his eyes for a little bit.

Relax. 

He could go back to work in a few minutes.

* * * 

Jack was in the ocean.

Jack was in the ocean, and he was swimming besides his own reflection.

He could tell it was his reflection, because the movements of it were different - were mirrored.

It was fun, in a weird way - he could swim under the water like some kind of mermaid, or maybe a fish man - and then that dumb song, from that one Lovecraft story popped into his head.

"It's beginning to look a lot like fish men," Jack bawled out, and somehow he was able to sing underwater, as he dived down. 

And his reflection dived down next to him, and it opened its mouth to sing along with him, in tandem, only it wasn't actually singing, it was... it was great, gulping tadpoles coming out of his mouth, or maybe they were fish eggs, or mermaids purses, or great, ropey globs of seaweed.

And Jack tried to run.

He tried to swim, but the water was suddenly like nothing so much as gelatin - he couldn't move in it, he could barely move, and his reflection was suspended as well, but for its eyes, and they were full of malice.

"Go away," Jack said, and the words came out of his mouth as bubbles.

His reflection echoed it, but the words weren't bubbles, they were... they were more of that vile... lumpy stuff.

And then the stuff met with the bubbles, and they popped together, creating some kind of strange amalgamation, and the bubbles popped with a desperate screaming noise.

When the bubbles popped, so did the power of whatever was holding Jack in place, and Jack turned around, racing away.

He was running away from his own reflection, and it wasn't doing anything, as he went deeper and deeper, as the gills on the sides of his neck took in the air from the water, and there were... there were great _things_ , things that glowed, things that had teeth on their eyelids, things that lurked around the very deepest parts of Sean's mind, but this wasn't a place for Sean right now, this was the place where Jack swam freely, usually.

This wasn't safe.

He was... he was changing, as he got deeper, as his skin got darker, and his teeth grew sharper and longer, as his whole body just... changed.

He was turning into something that dwelled below the crushing deeps, something that was out of a nightmare, except this _was_ a nightmare, wasn't it?

His legs had fused together at some point, and he had a tail.

An actual tail.

He could see, in the dimness, and now he was glowing with bioluminescence, and the teeth in his head _hurt_ , the lights in his arms and his legs and his everything else seemed to be throbbing in time with his heart, which had gotten... slower.

It was so dark, even with his lights, that he couldn't see his reflection anymore, and he gave a sigh of relief.

There was... there was a peace down here, surrounded by the things that looked like they belonged on the cover of a Lovecraft novel.

Even with the giant crabs, although he tried to avoid them, remembering that one game he'd played.

It was... it was all kind of terrifying, but in a way that made sense. 

Even as the dream was happening, Jack was aware that this was dream logic, but still.

He knew that things under the water looked strange, and usually had too many teeth. 

But he had no reflection, and if he belonged here, he belonged here.

Between one breath and the next, this was where Jack belonged, and things didn't seem so strange or so wrong.

He swam through the deep canyons under the water, avoiding the vampire squid and the angler fish, watching the tube worms with their gloriously red blooms, and he was at home.

Until something... solidified next to him, and he turned, the dread in his heart beginning to surface like a beast from the bottom of the ocean. 

He was aware that the terror was knotting up at the base of his gut, and he began to swim farther, deeper, into the crushing deep, until even this strange body couldn't take it, until he was gasping, dying, the pressure pushing down on him a rock.

His bones were going to splinter, his organs were going to be pulped, he was going to be nothing but a mess of skin and fragments for the starfish to eat, but he couldn't move now, he was held in the gaze of his own reflection. 

His own reflection, which looked... looked like it did on the surface, looked the way it had looked when he'd first dived down, looked the same as when all of this had started, if it had ever started.

It was a dream, so it was following dream logic, dream time, and time happened and happened, no matter where he went, no matter when he went.

And it was... reaching out to him, moving without him moving, and somehow that was worse, and then he was... changing again, he was changing, but he was changing to suit the reflection, except maybe _he_ was the reflection, because now the reflection was moving, and as it moved, he was moving.

He was moving towards its eye, and then he was... touching it, and there was the very tip of a claw against his eye, as he drowned, as his bones broke and his organs began to squish from the pressure....

* * *

Sean woke up, and he was shaking.

He was shaking so hard that his teeth were chattering, and he pushed himself away from the desk, to get away from the pressure of the table against his belly. 

Holy fucking... fuck.

He shouldn't have watched that movie last night.

Between the spaceship stuck under water and the cannibals... his brain was clearly stuck on something, and it was... unsettling, to say the least.

Then he laughed at himself, just a bit.

Wow. 

He was turning into a bit of a weenie, wasn't he?

He stretched, rubbing his eyes, and then he stood up, making his way towards the kitchen.

He might as well have some coffee, to clear the cobwebs out of his head, right?

* * * 

Sean sprawled out on the couch, his feet up, a bowl of popcorn next to him.

He was having a day to be a slug.

He'd decreed it to himself, since he'd been working so hard lately, and it was nice to have a chance to relax.

He was watching some dumb horror movie, because what was the point of being a slug, if not to enjoy the likes of fake blood and bad acting?

It had been a long week, and he didn't even notice when he started to fall asleep - he was roused, slightly, by the sound of the remote control falling off of his belly, but only barely.

* * * 

Jack walked through a market. 

It was a busy market.

It reminded him of the market scene in the beginning of Hellraiser, and that was a bit of a trip, wasn't it?

It was also a bit Star Wars - he saw things that definitely weren't human, saw things that definitely shouldn't have been able to move over the ground the way they did, and yet.

He was just another face in the crowd - even his green hair didn't stand out.

Except... he saw another bit of green hair.

A green that was even the same shade as his green, and, as is with the urgency of dreams, he followed it.

It was on a little girl - he was pretty sure it was a girl, at least. 

It was wearing a dress, and it had a few too many arms to be human, but the face was a face, not just a collection of features, and that meant something, right?

He followed it, because what else was he going to do, and he kept going, as his heart beat in his head like a drum.

It was almost like there was ominous music playing over the scene, and in some way, he was sure that they had done this before.

That this had all happened before, and he knew what was going to happen, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.

He followed after her in the market, which kept changing - from a shouk to some kind of dockside meet up to something out of a production of Sweeney Todd, and it was all just... something.

Something terrifying, something strange.

The terror was climbing up the back of his throat like a rat, and he could almost feel its stinking fur dragging across his teeth, as it tried to claw its way out of him.

And then he was in an alleyway.

There must have been other steps.

Other things had to have happened, because you can't just... materialize into an alleyway, you can't just show up into a place and have that be the be all end all, and yet.

He was standing here, and the little girl was turning towards him, only there was something wrong with her _face_.

Her mouth was taking over her whole face, it was like a lamprey or a leech, something that was nothing but mouth, and a pair of glowing eyes, and then the face was changing, as the body got longer and longer, and it was... it was Jack's face.

It was Jack's face, only it also _wasn't_ Jack's face, because there was something wrong with one of the eyes, and it took Jack a minute to figure it out.

It was green.

It wasn't a green eye the way he had blue eyes - it was fully green, and the greenness of it seemed to be pulsing, like something out of a cartoon about radiation. 

He wanted to turn away, to run, but then there was a hand, just lashing out, and he had to duck, because he was about to get slashed, and then the slash hit him in the face, across his forehead, down his cheek, and he couldn't see out of one eye.

It was pain - it was nothing but pain, and the blood was dripping down his face, dripping across his chin, leaving him a total mess.

Vitreous humor was wet on his cheek, and blood, and his reflection came closer to him, and it was smirking. 

"You're the copy, you know," it (he?) said.

Jack couldn't say anything, couldn't move - he just stood there, pain beating through him like it was some kind of hammer.

"You're the copy, and I'm the real one," said his reflection, and it was becoming more steady, it was getting less transparent, and then it was reaching out for his throat, and it was squeezing, squeezing hard enough that it was cutting off his air, and its fingers were sharp enough to cut into his throat, oh fuck....

* * *

And then Sean woke up, gasping.

He'd been sleeping with his face pressed into the pillow, which must have been cutting off his air, because as he sat up, coughing, gasping, trying to remind himself how to breathe, remind himself how to make his lungs work.

Fuck.

He brought a hand up to his eye, and he pressed it, gently.

Okay.

Okay. 

His eye was still there.

His face was still there, his throat was still there, his... everything was still there.

Fuck.

The movie wasn't even that intense, so why was he having nightmares about that sort of thing?

He rubbed his eyes again, as if to make sure that they were both still there, and then he paused his movie. 

Maybe he'd been doing too much horror stuff lately, if it was leaching into his dreams like this. 

* * *

Sean rubbed his eyes, and he groaned, glaring down at the piles of paperwork in front of him.

He hated doing his taxes, so much.

Because he was self employed, he had to fill out _actual_ paperwork.

What was the point of becoming a world famous YouTube star, if not to not have to fill out his own tax paperwork?

... fuck it. 

He stood up, stretched, and made his way towards his bedroom.

It was nearly three in the morning. 

He could deal with when he woke up.

* * *

Jack sat in a classroom, and he stared at a piece of paper that said... something.

Fucked if he knew what it said. 

He couldn't read what was on the page, he didn't know what the subject was, and the teacher kept _glaring_ at him.

He was even in his own school uniform, which had never fit him right, and that was its own level of uncomfortable, because he was way too old for all of these kids around him, and that added to the discomfort.

He was an interloper, with his green hair, at least fifteen years older than anyone else in the room....

He stood up, and when he did so, he was towering over everyone else, even as he made his way away from the (seemingly endless) rows and rows and rows of students.

He shuffled his way out of the room, shoving his hands in his pockets, trying not to slouch, and he made his way down a hallway.

It was a very long hallway, with bright lights.

His head was already starting to hurt, and he wondered how his head could hurt, in a dream.

Did dreams just work like that sometimes?

Maybe.

There were rows upon rows upon rows of lockers, and they all seemed taller than he was - it was as if, as he walked, everything got bigger, until he was like an action figure, walking along an average sized school.

Of course, there wasn't much he could do about that, was there?

He remembered a little snatch of text from a book he'd read a long time ago, about cat wizards and other worlds, walking through some strange version of Grand Central Station. 

Was this a different world?

There wasn't anything else here, just the huge lockers, which were like canyons on either side of him.

... hell, this was all a metaphor for something.

And that was enough to make him laugh in spite of himself, because... well, dude.

This was beginning to get ridiculous.

There was movement, in the corner of his eye, and he turned to look at it, frowning.

It was... it looked like an ink stain, or maybe someone had spilled something, and it had grown mold of some kind?

It was... well, it was foul, but it was still moving, and Jack was moving towards it without even thinking about it, just... taking a step after step after step, until he was close enough to touch it.

It reminded him of nothing so much as a house that had been taken over by black mold, only the black mold was moving, and it was... it was wriggling towards him, creating some kind of tendril, then getting longer, until it was chasing him.

And he ran.

He just ran, down the hallway, and the tiles of the floor became larger, became like great tectonic plates, but he was still moving over them, in the way that things work in dreams.

He was running and running, as the hallway went on and on, as the lights in the ceiling got farther and farther way, until the little bits of grout between each tile became more like a trench, until Jack was small enough that he couldn't get across it, and there was a desk.

A desk that stood like some monument to a dead god, and he hadn't noticed it before, because... well, dream logic, except when he looked up at it, he saw a great, tottering pile of papers.

He was going to be crushed, and the black mold had taken a shape.

It was shaped... like him, and it was gaining color, except it was also dripping black ichor, like oil slick footprints.

It came towards him, and then... fuck, then the papers were falling, and the thing following him wrapped some kind of tendril around his ankle, and it was pulling him towards it, and it was _forcing the tendril through his eye_ , and it might have been a dream but it still managed to hurt, and he was being... infected, it was bringing illness with it, sepsis, and he was screaming, but then the tendrils were in his mouth as well, filling him up, and the papers were falling, and he was... he was....

* * *

Sean sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes, and he held on to himself.

Fuck.

What was up with all of these nightmares?

Maybe the whole idea of making an evil version of himself was a bad idea.

If it was infection his dreams like this (why'd he have to use the word "infecting", oh god), maybe it was a bad idea.

It wasn't as if the thing in his dreams was going to haunt his real life or anything like that. The world didn't work like that.

But holy fuck, this was all just... a mess.

A very scary mess.

He got out of bed carefully, quietly, and he made his way towards his kitchen.

He'd have a cup of hot cocoa, maybe watch a cute YouTube video or something like that, until he felt better.

* * *

Sean stared at his computer screen, as he scrolled through Tumblr.

He had to admit... his fans were creative.

Well, no, okay, he'd admit his fans were creative in a heartbeat.

He was pretty fuckin' proud of them, and he was always flattered (and somewhat confused) over the fact that they chose _him_ as an outlet for their creativity, which was an odd thing to think about. 

But wow.

Some of their ideas for "antisepticeye" were... well, fucking terrifying.

He wasn't going to complain - he was the last one to complain about something that was good and terrifying! - but still.

Wow. 

He was going to have to up his game, if he wanted to keep it up!

* * *

Jack was tied up.

Jack was tied up, and it wasn't the fun kind of tying up that you saw in a certain class of photoset, oh no.

The ropes were biting into his wrists, and the seat was uncomfortable and cold against his back.

He shifted, trying to get comfortable, and the rope rubbed him raw.

And his reflection, or his double, whatever the fuck it was - just stood there, staring at him.

It had a knife.

It was also smiling, and it had a lot more teeth than it should have - its mouth seemed to go all the way up to its ears, and... no.

"Who are you?"

Jack's voice cracked like an adolescent's, and he blushed, cleared his throat.

"Who d'you think I am?"

His reflection stepped closer, and... oh wow.

That was an infected eye.

An infected eye, a slit throat... shit.

"Anti?"

"Very good," said Anti, and he smiled like a shark. "Although not for long."

"What do you mean, not for long?"

Jack yanked at the rope holding him down, trying to get out, but Anti was advancing with that knife of his, and... well, that was unpleasant.

"We need to change things around, don't you think?"

Anti's voice was odd, and it took Jack a few minutes to realize why; Anti's voice was coming from the rip in his throat, not the mouth on his face.

"Anti, why are you doing this?"

"I've tried to be subtle," Anti groused, and he was fiddling with the knife, grabbing Jack's hair, forcing Jack's head. 

"Subtle?"

Jack's voice cracked again, and he was shaking, trying so hard to stay still, because the knife was _right there_. 

"I followed you. I went to school with you, I swam with you, I chased you through that fucking jungle, and I tried to just... get you ready, but none of it worked. So fuck it."

And then Anti was doing something with the knife.

Jack didn't have time to react, because... because he was missing an eye, and then something... _else_ was being shoved into the socket, and that was... that was burning, it was like acid, it was poison, it was something that shouldn't have been happening, except it _was_ , and Jack was screaming so hard that his throat was going to rip. 

And then he stopped.

He stopped, because a knife had gone across his throat, and it was making his skin crawl, even as it happened, the blood jetting out of his throat like a pressure washer, except it wasn't a pressure washer, it was just... happening, it hurt, it hurt so badly, and he was sobbing, but the tears coming out of the eye that didn't belong were like acid.

And... his teeth were falling out.

Some part of him was rolling his eyes, because... really?

A dream where his teeth fell out?

He had the sensation of it, of the strange crumbly sensation of it between his gums, and that was enough to make him shiver, and he was watching Anti, in the dim room - and suddenly it was a room, they weren't just sitting in some void somewhere, but it was an ugly room made of poured concrete, and Anti was grabbing the long, serpentine tongue that was in his own neck wound, and he was... he was sawing it off, with that same blunt knife.

Anti's blood was like tar, and it dripped down the length of the blade, soaking into Anti's shirt, and then Anti was... taking the tongue, and shoving it at Jack's own neck wound, and why was Jack still aware, why wasn't he dead?

Why was it still _happening_?

The tongue... connected.

New filaments, new muscles, veins, they all reached out, connected, and then they were connected altogether, and it was... it was a piece of Jack's body.

Jack spat out teeth, and the great tongue lolled out of the wound in his throat, and then... oh fuck, there was a pain, a pain so great that he was wailing, but it was coming from the mouth in his throat, because bits of bone was emerging from his throat, the wound turning into a _mouth_ , and that same mouth was growing teeth, and the pain of it was enough to make him want to die.

He watched Anti, blinking the foreign eye and his own in tandem, as the great tongue slid back inside of his throat, and Anti smiled, with the mouth on his face.

Anti pressed on the seeping wound at his throat, and then it was... closing.

Anti had two blue eyes now, and it was... it was almost like Anti was Jack, but that wasn't right, because Anti wasn't Jack, Anti was Anti, and Jack was Jack.

They were two different entities, two different parts of one person at large, and they couldn't just change at large, because it didn't work like that.

It _couldn't_ work like that.

Jack - and he had to be Jack, he knew he was Jack, he had always been Jack, even as other memories flooded into his brain, as the terror of not knowing who he was began to eat him alive - thrashed, and tried to pull himself free of the rope, and he tried to get free, tried to get out.

He'd have to cut the eye out of Anti's face, he'd have to put the tongue back inside of Anti's throat, fuck, he just had to get free, he just had to... he had to get out, get free, he could do it, he could do it, he just had to give one last heaving jerk, and...

* * *

Sean woke up on the floor of his bedroom, and he rubbed his eyes, trying to figure out where he was, what was going on.

For an moment, he was convinced that there was a great, gaping wound in his throat, but… no.

He was still himself.

He was himself, and himself didn’t have to worry about that, because that kind of thing didn’t happen.

He was himself.

He was Sean, and Sean was real.

He pressed his face into his bed, and he groaned quietly.

Okay. 

He was going to get writing, first thing, if only to get all of this nonsense out of his head.

… whatever it happened to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Like this fic?
> 
> Want me to write you something like it, or something completely different?
> 
> Come talk to me on my tumblr, theseusinthemaze.tumblr.com!


End file.
